


Leavin on a Jetpack

by Lyraeon



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, Goodbyes, Light Angst, Multi, Other, Polyamory, Post-Canon, Post-Sburb/Sgrub, Snapchat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-04
Updated: 2016-11-04
Packaged: 2018-08-29 00:05:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8468194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyraeon/pseuds/Lyraeon
Summary: Terezi has everything now. A world to be god of, a kingdom to rule, a very (perhaps overly) full red quadrant, and possibly maybe even an idiot that might come around to hating her properly one of these days.One thing's missing though. And whether anyone else likes it or not, she's got to go find her.





	

It had been two years.

Okay, strictly speaking, it had been 5003 years - one before they leapt forward in time and another two since the 5000 year gap. But they'd only lived three of those years, and since they'd known she wasn't coming back any time soon, and had already determined she'd not come back during that 5000 years (or at least done a shit job of leaving evidence she had), as far as anyone was concerned, it had been two years.

Not that anyone but Terezi was really concerned.

Sure, Karkat tried his best to understand. He knew, in theory, how awful it was to lose your moirail, to go without one for three years, even if he'd never properly had one in this version of the timeline. He'd watched so many movies, read so many books, and spent a good year deluding himself into thinking his relationship with Dave was "pale, basically" and not the early stages of human dating. "How was I supposed to know?" he'd demanded repeatedly. "When either one of us was red with you, it was all sloppy makeouts and weird courtroom role plays, and all of the human romance movies were from Rose's collection-"

(He rarely made it past there before she shut him up with a kiss, since she'd only bring it up to hear him get riled up anyway.)

John came closest to understanding. He had liked Vriska, maybe even _liked_ Vriska - he wasn't sure, and Roxy was soooo pretty, but she also might be dating that girl cherub who kinda is Lord English or at least in his body? Oh god, are cherubs even boys or girls? well trolls were definitely boys or girls and John was reasonably sure he liked girls but he wasn't sure if he _liked_ Vriska or not because in the end they'd really only known each other a day and the last real interaction he'd had with her was punching her in the face and he wasn't? quite sure? if she'd even want to talk to him after that? But hey, that wasn't his idea, Terezi had told him to do that, and if she and Terezi were still friend-dating then-

(She couldn't shut him up like she did Karkat, however much she wanted to just sink her teeth into his lips and then go booby trap his front door, because John was still really squeamish about the whole kismeises thing and anyway four people were enough to try and officially pack into two quadrants without rounding up John for a third.)

But John did miss Vriska, too. It was just hard for Terezi to talk to him about it, for the same reason it was hard not to repaint his bedroom walls while he was off flying around places, because he just grated her soooooooo much.

Damn't she missed Vriska.

...She didn't even want to try talking to Kanaya bout it again, either. Not that she'd seen Kanaya for more than a few minutes since the wedding. She knew what she'd say if she tried, though:

"Three Years Without Vriska Is Just About Enough Time To Balance Out Three Years Living In The Same Lab As Vriska"

She was a way better moirail to Vriska than Kanaya had ever been, she was sure of that.

Did a good moirail just let her moirail wander around in the medium unsupervised and alone for three years, though? Had it even been three years for her, out there? Would more than a few days have passed for Vriska when they finally reunited?

 _Would_ they be reunited?

"You promised," Terezi muttered under her breath, then sighed at the ceiling.

Jade squirmed a little under her head, her foot twitching in her sleep. Terezi chuckled when a muffled bark followed.

Jade probably understood. Jade was her own best friend, and yet had lost him; he lived on only in moments like this, when she dreamed in dog.

She didn't want to talk to Jade about it, if only because she knew that two years of missing one person had to be nothing compared to three years of missing everyone, and after hearing Jade cry about the time she'd spent alone, Terezi didn't want to risk ever letting, let alone making, her cry again.

Jade barked in her sleep again.

Between that and all the moping, Terezi decied to face the fact she wasn't getting any more sleep that afternoon.

She pushed herself up from the bed where she'd been using Jade's stomach as a pillow, careful not to jab her with her horns as she did.

Jade pawed at the air behind her, and Terezi turned back to make sure she was just doing it in her sleep. Jade's hand fell again and she listlessly rolled over, her forehead resting against Karkat's shoulder on her other side.

Satisfied that she hadn't woken her sleeping matesprits up, Terezi climbed off their unnecessarily oversized bed and wandered out of the room. It was dark in their hive, but Dave hadn't been in bed, so she was sure he was upstairs mixing some sweet tunes.

She checked her phone. Seven Snapchats worth of story later, Terezi was assured that while he was awake and at home, her remaining boyfriend was sufficiently soundproofed that she didn't have to worry about sneaking around.

She grabbed a snack and headed out the back door.

Officially speaking, she and Jade lived next door. In practice, and with no subtelty whats-so-ever, all four of them lived in Karkat's place and the girls' hive was mostly used for storage and the sake of having a third gaper when needed.

She had a hive of her own, too, out in the forest, but that acted as their vacation/hide from the "pressures" of being rulers (pfffft, as if she had any qualms about being in a position of power). Dave had a human house a few blocks from Rose's, but he'd quite literally turned it into a shitty art exhibit and never gone back. If he wasn't with them, he was with Dirk and Jake for a few days, and if he wasn't there either, he was DJing at some unknown club, entirely unnanounced, just for the sake of seeing himself trending on Twitter for a few days.

It'd been a couple months; his early evening mixing was probably him gearing up for another round of that bullshit in particular.

Terezi made it upstairs to her block. She wasn't sure why she'd locked the hive door behind her, or why she was now closing her own door. Instinct said it was early warning if someone else showed up, but who would even show up and why would she care?

It wasn't like she hadn't pulled her jetpack back out of the closet before. After all, the novelty of flying had only just started to wear off for the humans, so there were times where she'd go zoom around with them, if only to make Karkat jealous enough that he'd let her fly him around with them.

It wasn't like the others didn't know she still had a magic 8-ball in her drawers, either. Rose had run a Dungeons and Dragons campaign for the better part of a year, and she kept her dice in that same drawer. Her FLARP books and photo album were just below that.

(She didn't open that drawer today. She just couldn't do it.)

It definitely wasn't like she came up here more and more often lately, or like she'd gotten out the back door with her jetpack on and no one else around to go flying with once or twice by now.

Nah, it was nothing like any of that.

There was no way it had been two, let alone 5003, years for Vriska, right? She'd said things the way she'd said them becaue she knew it was going to be a while on their side of things, but for her shit had been two weeks, tops. That had to be how things were. Vriska was determined to be a hero or a martyr and as soon as she was done with one or the other she'd be back. The fact the universe was still intact was evidence she'd succeeded, in whatever place and time that was.

Terezi thought about that a lot. About how time and space were one continuous plane out there, and to move in one was to move in the other, and yet time never really passed - it was every time all at once.

She had Seen the memories to know that was how it worked. To know that Vriska succeded in all timelines, because in the place Vriska was going to be fighting, where she had already fought, there was only one timeline; it was the singularity through which all realities had to pass eventually, the end and the beginning of everything and nothing all at once. Rose and Dave had caused the creation of the Green Sun through the destruction of two universes; Calliope, its destruction. And Vriska could never be second best, so of course she'd find the one place in all of reality to one-up that kind of accomplishment.

She fastened on the jetpack.

It was more practical to wait for her, wasn't it? Terezi would be easy to find, and Vriska was the lucky one, so surely her finding Earth C would be easier than the other way around?

Except there were millions of universes Earth C could be in, and probably hundreds of timelines branching off from their arrival by now. Vriska could wind up in any one of those, intead of the one Terezi was in right that moment.

She might even wind up in this one, after Terezi had left to find her.

The others would tell her if that happened, though, right? They'd let her know that Vriska had found her way home, and that she could come back, and if she could get there, she could get back again! She'd be able to See the way.

(Maybe, out there, far from the distractions, she'd even be able to See a way to become a god tier. Three-hundred sweeps sounded like a long time to have to search, but Vriska had forever. Dave and Jade had forever, once she returned.)

(...she had to find that, for Karkat's sake more than anything. He needed it more than her. None of them knew how many sweeps he had.)

She started to unhook the harness again.

No. Not today. Vriska had promised she'd come back. It hadn't been long enough yet. She'd probably intentionally make herself take 8 years, right?

Haha, of course she would.

She shoved the entire contents of the drawer into her sylladex, put on her shades, and tucked in the jetpack wings so she could get through the door. It wasn't even five yet, if she left now she could reach the frog temple before sundown and be back out in the medium before any of them figured out she wasn't just at the grubmart. She was sure she remembered which buttons to press, and if not, there was no way Jake would catch on to why she was asking.

She almost made it out the door.

"No kiss goodbye?"

 _Shit_.

She hadn't even noticed Dave, though it sounded like he was sitting intentionally out of the way.

She forced the hugest grin she could before turning toward him. "Ha. You that big of a sap I can't even go hang out with the Grub Queens for a few hours without you missing me?"

"Well, shit, why didn't you say so. If you're gonna go see mom and the mom-squad, I'll come with."

Her grin faded.

"You can't bullshit a bullshitter, 'Rez. And I've known Rose and Karkat both long enough that I could keep a coprologist convention busy for days."

"How long have you been waiting to use that one?"

"I've already used it on Rose, but it was good enough to recycle."

"Eh, I give it a 7/10."

"Only because you know I recycled it."

"Guilty."

Terezi grinned again, this time genuinely at the banter.

The silence went on too long and her face fell once more.

"You're seriously going to go look for her?"

"I- I hadn't made up my mind yet. Probably."

"You? Not make up your mind?"

She scrunched her nose. "Shush."

"I thought you'd just flip on it."

"I always know how the coin will land."

"Exactly."

"Dave."

"Terezi."

"I have to find her."

"I know. I think you're an idiot for wanting to, but fuck, I've missed way more toxic people, so I'm not going to stop you."

Terezi hadn't even noticed she was baring her teeth until suddenly she wasn't. "...You're not?"

"I only stopped you last time because it was like three days before Rose's wedding and I did not want to be the one to explain that shit."

She chuckled.

"But I wish you'd tell us," Dave continued. "Or at least, tell Jade. She doesn't need any more abandonment in her life."

"Wow, way to lay on the guilt trip."

"You think I'm bad, wait till you see the puppy eyes."

Terezi made a pained noise and covered her face. "Not the eyes. Why'd you have to remind me about the eyes. Daaaaaaaave, I thought you said you weren't trying to stop me."

"I'm not."

She moved her hands just to glare at him.

"Come home. Let's have breakfast, then you can tell everyone."

"They'll just try to stop me."

"And you'd rather leave in the middle of the day than have to actually witness how much they're going to miss you."

Terezi balled up her fists, breathing deep and slow as she decided whether to be angry with Dave or start crying.

"Yes."

"Yes?"

"Yes, I'd rather leave in the middle of the day than face them."

Dave reeled, caught off guard.

"I've already gone over every single reason not to go, a thousand times. I don't need to review them all with a trio of witnesses."

He had no answer for that. He held his breath and let it out slowly, trying to contain a sigh.

"No one understands because no one feels the way I feel about her."

"She _is_ kind of a bitch."

"Yeah, but she's my bitch."

The emphasis on the B was carefully practiced; Dave could hear Vriska's quirk in there, the one she'd always tried to pretend was intentional and not a weird consequence of her fangs. Terezi had picked it up over time and while it had faded as time passed, it still came up any time she talked about her missing moirail.

He couldn't contain the next sigh. "I know."

"Don't make me say goodbye."

"You say that like anyone's ever been able to make you do anything."

"Please. You guys have made me do a lot of things."

"Hey, now. Made and encouraged are two different things."

Terezi chuckled.

"Alright then," she said, stepping toward him. "I'm going to _encourage_ you to just let me go."

"You're not going to even play along for me to get in an 'I can't let you do that, Dave'?"

"Why would I do a thing like that?"

He shrugged, pushing his hands deeper in his pockets. "Because you love me?"

She hugged him first, because she knew she'd be standing there all night if she waited for him. She was still trying to get out of this reality before the others woke up.

"I do," she muttered into his shoulder, clinging tightly to the back of his shirt.

Dave hugged her back slowly, feeling around for a place to hug her rather than her jet pack.

"I love both of you assholes," she mumbled, face pressed against him. "And Jade too."

"I know," Dave assured her, kissing her hair just beside one horn. "We love you too. I love you too."

"What a fucking sap," she laughed weakly, sniffling. "You know how much shit John would give you if he heard you right now?"

"Oh for sure," he agreed, swaying gently to comfort her. "But then we could just make out and totally gross him out."

Terezi turned her head up towards him, grinning despite the tears welled in her eyes.

Their kiss lasted a good minute before she hid in his shoulder again, squeezing him tighter than before.

"Pass that on, would you?" she whispered.

"No," he countered, kissing her hair again.

"No?"

"No," he repeated. "You can do it yourself."

"Dave-"

"-After you get back from rescuing your bitch."

"...Pffffft." This time when she started laughing, the sound wasn't broken by smothered sniffled. "Karkat has made you watch too many of his dumb romance movies."

"Karkat can't make me do anything."

Terezi smiled.

Dave smiled back, though his expression wavered when he remembered why they were standing in her hive, clinging to each other.

"A compromise, then," she said, resting one hand on his cheek. "Just pass this along." She pressed a much shorter, chaste by her standards, kiss to his lips. "For the sake of Karkat and his romance movies."

"Ew, you want me to kiss Karkat?" he teased.

"You're making compromising quite difficult, Dave."

"Maybe I'm just stalling."

"It's not like you to admit things so easily."

Dave kissed her again. Terezi snickered.

"But yes. Pass that along to them for me. To both of them. And pass this along to Jade." She leaned up and licked him on the nose.

"Eww," he complained, face deadpan. "Do I have to?"

"You were given your options," she grinned.

She hugged him tight again before he could see the smile vanish.

He held on as long as he dared, wanting to stay true to his words not to stop her.

"You better get going," he whispered, letting go slowly.

"Wow, you that eager to get rid of me?"

Terezi regretted the joke immediately.

She waited as long as possible to let go of his hand, backing away until her arm was fully outstretched and their fingers slipped apart naturally.

She was glad when he didn't follow her outside. She was even more glad that she wouldn't know if he was outside by the time she was at cruising height, anyway.

For the next hour of flying, Terezi kept her hands firmly on the shoulder straps of her harness. Her mind kept straying to her phone, telling her to check it for messages from the others. She told herself not to check it because she'd just drop her phone and then what? There'd be no finding it from this height, and snapchat didn't run on her shades.

Really she just knew she needed to be safely back in the medium before she risked reading anything that would make her re-think leaving.

Another hour and a few knobs later, she was stepping onto the lily pad, knowing she was pointed as close to the right part of reality as she could be.

She waited until the room started to glow around her to finally pull her phone out of her pocket, and waited until the leaves started to raise before she actually unlocked the screen.

The others were likely still safely asleep, or at the least, Dave hadn't told them so she could get a head start. There was no barrage of messages, no stupid number of notifications, nothing that would suggest she was missed yet.

Just one Facebook tag from John - she'd check that later, because the longer she waited the more annoyed he'd be that she hadn't reacted yet - and one SnapChat from Dave.

She took a deep breath.

Everything went black around her as she opened it.

Terezi laughed, shaking her head, and took a screenshot as the world unfurled once more around her, the endless void of the medium and the rainbow hairline fractures that covered it spread around her.

She'd had two years of uninterrupted continuity to fall in love with her three matesprits and to get comfortable with their rather unconventional arrangement. Maybe it did seem silly for her to want another quadrant filled on top of that complication, but that piece of her heart still tugged her toward the void, even as that silly message tried to tug her back towards the other three.

Answering in kind seemed like the only logical solution.

She put her phone away and fired up her jetpack.

Vriska was out there somewhere.


End file.
